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Democrats’ Shutdown Spin Defies Logic

The charge: Republicans are willing to shut down the government over the issue of Planned Parenthood funding. Democrats and the media are making the charge and Republicans are denying it – arguing that, instead, the disagreement centers on the total amount of budget cuts. But the GOP’s denial only feeds into the assumption that everyone seems to be buying into, namely that if Planned Parenthood funding is what stymies a budget deal, it is the GOP that will stand guilty of shutting down the government over the issue.

Excuse me for being logical in the midst of a shutdown “crisis,” but why is virtually everyone – even Republicans – buying into this assumption when it can just as easily be said that Democrats caused a shutdown by refusing to cut funding for their beloved Planned Parenthood?

Consider the logic. If the only thing preventing a deal between A and B is disagreement over including X in the deal, then failure to reach a deal can just as easily be ascribed to A’s refusal to include X as it can to B’s demand that X be included. In fact, you can’t even logically say who is doing the demanding and who is doing the refusing. For example, are the Democrats refusing to include a Planned Parenthood rider or are they demanding that Planned Parenthood be funded?

This logic transcends the questions of whether Planned Parenthood is or isn’t the real sticking point and whether it should or should not be funded. Nor does the logic depend on whether “abortion” or “women’s health” better describes the underlying issue. Whichever way you come out on those questions, the logic remains the same: there is no rational basis for saying that it is Republicans, rather than Democrats, who are forcing a shutdown over the Planned Parenthood issue. And vice versa.

Nonetheless, if the Democrats continue to employ rhetoric rather than logic, Republicans’ best defense is to go on the offensive by turning the Democrats’ illogic against them. Put the Planned Parenthood issue on the Democrats’ shoulders by pointing out that Democrats are so beholden to the radical Left and so obsessed with protecting the nation’s number one provider of abortions that they’d rather subject Americans to the hardships of a shutdown than see their beloved Planned Parenthood lose a little of its government handout. It is at least as true as what the Democrats are claiming.